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New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 41, 18 October 1923, Page 15

The Dead Leaders

APPRECIATIONS OF GRIFFITH AND COLLINS. Mr. E. J. Duggan, one of the signatories of the Treaty, in an appreciation of Arthur Griffith, after describing his meeting with the dead leader in Mount]oy Prison, writes:

.._' It was during these seven months in Mountjoy that I learned to know the real Arthur Griffith, the most humble, unassuming/'genial, and lovable of men, a brilliant conversationalist, with a wonderful fund of stories, always cheerful, good-humored and as full of fun as a healthy school-boy. He was the soul of generosity.

"If he. noticed ..amongst the prisoners one from whose appearance it might be assumed that he had not friends 'outside who could afford to send him in those little comforts which the prison regulations allowed, he made it his business to get into chat with him, and, having discovered the location of the prisoner's cell, would proceed to share with him anything that had been sent in to himself."

. He joined in the physical exercises and in any little games that could be played in the exercise yard with the zest of the youngest.

His Versatile Tastes.

He was a man of great physical strength, and in his younger days had been an excellent gymnast.

He was a powerful swimmer, and at one time swam every day throughout the year. He was also a very keen cyclist, and knew every lane and by-road within fifty miles of Dublin. . "•-

He was keenly interested in all the arts —music in particular was a regular patron of the Esposito Sunday Concerts in the Antient Concert Rooms. His memory for old Irish tunes and songs was ex-

traordinary.

He- loved all the people, but in particular the Dublin poor. All the newsboys and flower-sellers knew him, and no matter who was with him or how great his hurry, he never possed them by.* .

He always raised his hat in response to the salute of the very humblest, and nothing pleased him more than the "God bless you, sir," of the poor women in the back streets when they recognised his well-known figure passing through.

Mr. Kevin O'Higgins, Minister for Home Affairs, in an appreciation of Michael Collins, says:

Men have written and men will write hereafter of the Michael Collins who carried his country on his broad young shoulders, who rallied his people when they reeled before the British "Terror," who crowded into every day 17 or 18 hours of grim, intensive work for the resurrection of his submerged race, and yet found time for all those little personal touches of friendship, of sympathy, of congratulation, which form the woof of life. :I

The Test of Greatness.

I question whether the tempered judgment of posterity will find in all or any of these things the height of Michael Collins' greatness or the depth of his love for his people. I think they will find it rather at the moment on the night of the 6th December, 1921, when Michael Collins took pen in hand and signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Michael Collins was eminently the leader of the left wing of his nation. He was pre-eminently fitted to do so. To include him in the team of negotiators was in truth a playing of the last card. He had himself demurred to the selection and surrendered to the one argument was was sure to fire—his generositythe national need. '-They will never make their best offer in your absence." No one knew better than he what that acceptance involved. : He had no illusions on that score. The 100 per cent, of the national demand was not available by negotiation. - That had been made perfectly clear in the protracted correspondence which had preceded the ne-

gotiations. But he was told "They will never make thenbest offer in your absence"and so he went. r : ; -

No one knew better than he. that from the day he went little jealous - minds at home were busy coining . the taunts that they would fling at him on his return. He could almost hear them turning the words "coward" and traitor" in their mouths,. in pleasurable anticipation of their use against a" man whose phenomenal courage and energy had been a standing rebuke to -maay. " But—" They will '• never make their best offer in your absence," and with the cheery smile with which' he always greeted trouble ahead— went.

When the "best offer" came, when he found himself supported in his view that it was tho "best offer" by the most mature political n*ind, the shrewdest 'political judgment that ever served the cause of Ireland, Michael Collins did not hesitate between the alternative of saving his country and saving his political face. V